MEREDITH B. LILLY, AUDREY LAPORTE, and PETER C. COYTE. Keywords: Unpaid caregivers, home care, employment, labor supply.

Transcription

1 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers: A Systematic Review of Labor Force Participation Rates, Predictors of Labor Market Withdrawal, and Hours of Work MEREDITH B. LILLY, AUDREY LAPORTE, and PETER C. COYTE University of Toronto As people continue to age and receive complex health care services at home, concern has arisen about the availability of family caregivers and their ability to combine employment with caregiving. This article evaluates the international research on unpaid caregivers and their labor market choices, highlighting three conclusions: first, caregivers in general are equally as likely to be in the labor force as noncaregivers; second, caregivers are more likely to work fewer hours in the labor market than noncaregivers, particularly if their caring commitments are heavy; and finally, only those heavily involved in caregiving are significantly more likely to withdraw from the labor market than noncaregivers. Policy recommendations are targeting greater access to formal care for intensive caregivers and developing workplace policies for employed caregivers. Keywords: Unpaid caregivers, home care, employment, labor supply. As individuals in societies around the globe age, many policymakers are becoming concerned about future demands on health care systems. Although the extent to which these concerns are warranted is debated (McKnight 2006; Payne et al. 2007; Spillman and Pezzin 2000), demographics show that many countries populations as a whole are indeed aging (Heitmueller and Inglis Address correspondence to: Meredith Lilly, Department of HPME, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 155 College Street, Suite 425, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 3M6, Canada ( meredith.lilly@ utoronto.ca). The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 4, 2007 (pp ) c 2007 Milbank Memorial Fund. Published by Blackwell Publishing. 641

2 642 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte 2007; Toosi 2006; Van Houtven and Norton 2004). In the United States, the percentage of the population above the age of sixty-five is projected to rise from the current 12.4 percent to 20 percent by 2030 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2006). In the European Union, this share will rise from 16 percent today to 30 percent by 2050 (Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007a). The impact of this aging population on their future use of health services is only one issue facing policymakers. On a different track, policymakers are concerned about securing enough workers to sustain their economies and provide the tax base needed to support large cohorts of retired citizens (Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007b; Ettner 1995; Hedge, Borman, and Lammlein 2006; Heitmueller and Inglis 2007; Karoly and Panis 2004; Spillman and Pezzin 2000; Toosi 2006; Wolf 1999). In health care, perceptions of an impending financial crisis have led to a desire to control public spending. Many countries method of limiting state spending has been to encourage individuals to age in their own homes, for which the share of publicly financed services is generally lower than in institutional settings, even though the economic burden placed on individuals and their families is much higher (Arno, Levine, and Memmott 1999; Coyte and McKeever 2001; Doty 2000; Lundsgaard 2005; Shireman and Rigler 2004; Stabile, Laporte, and Coyte 2006; Tranmer et al. 2005; Wolf 1999). Although the home has been the primary health care setting for most of human history, societal shifts during the current demographic changes have complicated the use of the home as a setting for providing costeffective health care services. First, the number of women, the traditional caregivers for ill family members, in the labor force has increased substantially, raising questions about their willingness and availability to continue caregiving in the future. Second, people are living longer and are remaining in their homes with higher levels of illness and disability than ever before. Consequently, the duration of caregiving has become longer and the role of family caregivers has become more complex, with tasks ranging from changing gastronomy tubes and colostomy bags to providing home chemotherapy (Levine 1999; Yantzi, Rosenberg, and McKeever 2007). Third, the composition of families and households is changing, with fewer coresiding adult children and elderly parents, more singleparent households, and smaller families (Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007b; Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Ettner 1995; Heitmueller and Inglis 2007; Jenkins 1997; Johnson and Lo Sasso 2000; McLanahan and

3 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 643 Monson 1990; Spillman and Pezzin 2000; Van Houtven and Norton 2004; Wolf, Hunt, and Knickman 2005). Given that many countries governmental programs are based on the assumption that family members will provide the majority of home care services (Arno, Levine, and Memmott 1999; Bittman et al. 2004; Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007b; Carmichael and Charles 1998, 2003a, 2003b; Heitmueller and Inglis 2007; Levine et al. 2006; MacDonald, Phipps, and Lethbridge 2005), securing an adequate supply of family caregivers for the future has been a major priority. Henceforth we shall refer to them as unpaid caregivers, the family members and friends who, on the basis of their close personal relationships, provide home care services to recipients in their private residences without financial compensation (Fast, Eales, and Keating 2001). Determining the appropriate amount of public investment in formal home care services in order to optimize these unpaid caregivers service outputs has been the focus of intense research interest. There has been some debate over whether formal (paid) and informal (unpaid) care are substitutes or complements (Muramatsu and Campbell 2002; Muramatsu et al. 2007; Wolf 1999). If they are substitutes, an increase in the generosity of paid home care programs would result in a decrease in the provision of unpaid care. However, if this care is complementary, both types of service provision would act together to improve the overall provision of care, without reducing service levels of the other type. As Charles and Sevak (2005) outlined, the early research evidence was mixed (Muramatsu and Campbell 2002; Tennstedt, Crawford, and McKinlay 1993), but more recent evidence consistently suggests that the two may be partial substitutes, so an increase in formal service provision is associated with fewer hours of care contributed by family members. Similarly, a decrease in formal service provision is associated with an increase in hours of care by family members (Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007a; Charles and Sevak 2005; Levine et al. 2006; Spillman and Pezzin 2000; Stabile, Laporte, and Coyte 2006; Van Houtven and Norton 2004; Viitanen 2007). Assuming that paid and unpaid care are substitutes, some policymakers have suggested that increasing public expenditures on formal home and community care services may erode long-standing informal networks of support (Tennstedt, Crawford, and McKinlay 1993). But such policy positions may be shortsighted in failing to recognize the growing demographic pressures facing our societies. Inducing family members to take

4 644 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte up caregiving roles may curtail health care spending in the short term, but what would such policies mean for future labor markets? Specifically, if family members are allocating their time to provide care, what other uses of their time are they giving up? Given that a significant proportion of caregivers in many countries are labor force participants under the age of sixty-five (Arber and Ginn 1995; Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Hawranik and Strain 2000; Heitmueller and Inglis 2007; Henz 2004; Keating et al. 1999; Spillman and Pezzin 2000), the effects of unpaid caregiving could be significant for labor forces and economies in general and could extend beyond the period of direct caregiving. In this article, we examine the impact of unpaid caregiving on caregivers labor force participation and on their hours of labor market work. We describe the results of a systematic review of the international literature pertaining to caregivers and their labor market choices, by describing the relationships between unpaid caregiving and three distinct, but related, labor supply questions. First, we consider the impact of caregiving on labor force participation, a binary measure reflecting a person s status as being either in or out of the labor market. Second, we consider the sociodemographic, health, and labor market factors that influence caregivers participation in the labor force and the number of hours they work in the labor market. Third, we examine the relationship between the intensity of unpaid caregiving and the intensity of labor market work as measured by the number of weekly hours committed to each. This article synthesizes and compares the results of various studies, identifies trends, and makes both policy recommendations and suggestions for future research. Theoretical Framework The labor force participation decision making process undertaken by potential caregivers has already been well described (Heitmueller 2007). Put simply, individuals have a series of choices when faced with caregiving decisions, the first one being whether to accept the caregiving role. 1 Their current labor force status and the availability of other family members who may be able to take on caregiving duties may influence this decision. For instance, spouses of care recipients who are employed full-time and are earning relatively high wages may opt not to care but instead to maintain or even increase their labor force commitments

5 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 645 in order to buy care services. Similarly, the adult children of the care recipient who are earning high wages may remain in the labor market and opt to forgo their future inheritance in order to allow their parents to buy care services. Conversely, caregivers may self-select from a pool of underemployed or labor force nonparticipants, whose labor market opportunity costs are relatively low and where the risk of losing access to the care recipient s assets, such as their home, may be great. If working individuals decide to take on caregiving responsibilities, they then must decide whether to remain in the labor force and how many hours per week they will devote to unpaid caregiving versus paid employment, as well as other uses of their time (Arber and Ginn 1995; Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007b; Carmichael and Charles 1998, 2003a; Ettner 1995, 1996; Johnson and Lo Sasso 2000; Pavalko and Artis 1997; Spiess and Schneider 2003; Stabile, Laporte, and Coyte 2006; Wolf and Soldo 1994). Methods The methods we used in this review comply with Long s (2006) recommendations for conducting systematic reviews in the social care arena and also with those of the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating (EPPI) Centre (2007) for conducting systematic reviews in the social sciences. We conducted a literature search in March 2006 to identify articles published in English between 1986 and Owing to the scarcity of evidence, we chose a publication range of twenty years. To capture all relevant literature from the various disciplines of economics, health services research, social work, gerontology, nursing, and gender studies, we searched thirteen databases, including AgeLine, PsycINFO, EconLit, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and the Gender Studies Database. 2 We used the following search terms (and their affiliated truncations): at least one of family caregiving, or informal caregiving, or unpaid caregiving, combined with at least one of employment, or labor supply, or labor force. 3 We reviewed eighty-nine abstracts of the 328 citations we retrieved after eliminating all duplicates. We excluded articles from the complete literature review if (1) their titles/abstracts indicated that unpaid caregivers were not the primary focus of the article or (2) they presented no quantitative empirical work on the probability of labor force participation, hours of work, or wages. Forty-two articles were retained for a complete review.

6 646 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte To increase sensitivity and reduce the potential for publication bias (Stanley 2001; Sterne, Egger, and Smith 2001), we performed author and hand searches of the forty-two articles and their bibliographies to identify another ten articles, two working papers (Carmichael et al. 2005; McLanahan and Monson 1990), and two published reports for review (Johnson and Lo Sasso 2000; Keating et al. 1999). Then, following the suggestion of an anonymous reviewer, we identified two more articles. Following a detailed review of all fifty-eight articles, we excluded twenty-three from further analysis for failing to meet our eligibility criteria. Of these, we excluded a small number (n = 4) because the care recipients resided in institutions or because caregiving was defined as time assistance to elderly individuals who were not necessarily ill (Dautzenberg et al. 2000; Johnson and Lo Sasso 2000; Kolodinsky and Shirey 2000; Pezzin and Schone 1999). 4 We also excluded four articles because of their exclusive focus on subpopulations of caregivers to children with special needs (Brennan and Brannan 2005; Leiter et al. 2004) or patients with mental illness (Cannuscio et al. 2004; Roberts 1999). While these are important and related areas of inquiry, results from these studies cannot be generalized to the majority of people caring for adults with a physical illness and/or disability. In the end, thirtyfive articles met our inclusion criteria and are analyzed in this literature review. General Study Characteristics With the exception of one multinational European study and one Canadian study, the remaining thirty-three studies analyzed data from either the United States (n = 27) or the United Kingdom (n = 6). Approximately two-thirds of studies (n = 22) focused exclusively on caregiving to the elderly, and a significant minority focused solely on female caregivers (n = 12), caregiving only for family members (n = 8) or labor force participants (n = 11), and 40 percent (n = 14) compared caregivers with noncaregivers or the general population. Again, unpaid caregivers are defined as family members and friends who provide home care services to recipients without financial compensation. Even though those activities considered as home care services vary within and between countries (Muramatsu and Campbell 2002), typical services include those necessary to allow care recipients to remain living in their home and avoid nursing home or long-term care

7 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 647 facility admission (Weissert, Cready, and Pawelak 2005). In the studies reviewed here, those services included helping with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) and may have included any of the following: personal care activities such as bathing, dressing, and feeding the care recipient; assisting with toileting, taking medication, and using medical devices; preparing meals and cleaning up; cleaning the house; doing the laundry; maintaining the house; shopping for groceries; taking the care recipient to medical appointments; and helping with paying household bills and banking (Boaz 1996; Levine et al. 2006; Muramatsu and Campbell 2002; Stabile, Laporte, and Coyte 2006; Wolf 1999). Methodologically, 86 percent (n = 30) of the studies involved secondary data analysis. Thirty-two studies used cross-sectional (n = 25) or longitudinal (n = 7) survey instruments, and the remaining three used experimental or quasi-experimental study designs (Chang and White- Means 1995; Muurinen 1986; White-Means 1993). Despite the common use of surveys in economics (Atkinson and Brandolini 2001), such instruments are difficult to assess for validity and reliability. However, surveys can also offer the advantage of strong statistical power achieved through a large sample size. Most of the surveys discussed here were developed and administered by such government bodies as the U.S. Census Bureau and the United Kingdom s Office of National Statistics, with sample populations greater than one thousand. Two such longitudinal surveys from the United States are of particular importance: the National Long- Term Care Survey (NLTCS) and its accompanying Informal Caregiver Survey (ICS), a national dataset of two thousand caregivers to seniors aged sixty-five and older enrolled in Medicare; and the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), a nationally representative survey of 13,000 adults living in private residences (Duke University Center for Demography 2006; University of Wisconsin at Madison 2006). Data from various years of these two surveys were used in 40 percent (n = 14) of the studies we reviewed. Similarly, the United Kingdom s (UK) General Household Survey, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of more than 13,000 adults, was analyzed in another four articles. Seven other articles from the United States and all eight from other countries used various other secondary datasets to explore these issues. These studies offer important comparisons with the NLTCS and NSFH studies. The six remaining studies from the United States used primary data collected by study authors and have smaller sample sizes

8 648 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte (n = ). Finally, almost one-third of the studies were authored by two groups of researchers, one from the United States (White-Means and colleagues, n = 6) and the other from the United Kingdom (Carmichael and Charles, and Carmichael and colleagues, n = 4). For all studies, only those findings with p < 0.05 are referenced as being statistically significant. Table 1 summarizes the data, methods, and major findings of each study, divided into five sections according to country and data source: (1) U.S. studies analyzing the National Long-Term Care Survey, (2) U.S. studies analyzing the National Survey of Families and Households, (3) U.S. studies using other data, (4) UK studies, and (5) Canadian and European studies. Results Labor Force Participation: Most Caregivers Labor Force Status Remains Stable. Labor force participants are individuals who are employed or actively seeking employment; otherwise, they are not in the labor force. In most countries, labor force participation (LFP) is measured among noninstitutionalized individuals aged sixteen to sixty-four, although the upper age limit is increasing in some jurisdictions in accordance with the repeal of mandatory retirement legislation (U.S. General Accounting Office 2003). The LFP rate represents the percentage of those in the labor force relative to the total working-age population. Examining LFP rates among societal subgroups is a method to gauge social inclusion (Pavis, Hubbard, and Platt 2001). For unpaid caregivers, the LFP rate provides only one indication of their overall economic well-being. The studies primary measure for labor force participation varied, with some including the unemployed who were seeking work; however, the majority considered only those who were employed or self-employed. Because the unemployed represent a small proportion of the total labor force, the use of one measure versus the other is unlikely to affect our general conclusions. 5 Before summarizing findings on caregivers LFP, we first outline a landmark article that introduces a critical methodological issue. Muurinen (1986) compared the labor market effects of unpaid caregiving by those providing primary care to terminally ill cancer patients in the United States in three care settings (home hospice, institutional

9 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 649 TABLE 1 Study Characteristics Sample Limited to Labor Caring Caring Force for for Author Data Source Study Design N Sample Population Women Caregivers Participants Elderly Family 1. U.S. Studies Using the National Long Term Care Survey (NLTCS) and Informal Care Survey (ICS) (n = 10) Boaz and Muller NLTCS and ICS Boaz and 1989 NLTCS and ICS Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998 Mutschler 1993 Mutschler NLTCS and ICS 1982 NLTCS and ICS 1982 NLTCS and ICS Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 1,917 Adults of all ages providing unpaid care for a period of 3+ months to a nationally representative sample of functionally limited (at least 1 ADL/IADL limitation) Medicare-enrolled seniors living at home 1,489 (1982); 597 (1989) ICS sample; bivariate analysis considered adults of all ages; regression analysis considered those aged 64 and under 818 ICS sample; bivariate analysis considered both adults of all ages and those aged 18 64; regression analysis considered only women 494 ICS sample; analysis limited to current or former labor force participants 1,059 ICS sample; analysis limited to current labor force participants (Continued)

10 650 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte TABLE 1 Continued Sample Limited to Labor Caring Caring Force for for Author Data Source Study Design N Sample Population Women Caregivers Participants Elderly Family Stone and Short 1990 White-Means and Thornton 1990 White-Means 1992 White-Means and Chollet 1996 White-Means NLTCS and ICS 1982 NLTCS and ICS 1982 NLTCS and ICS 1982 and 1989 NLTCS and ICS 1989 NLTCS and ICS Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 1,003 ICS sample; analysis limited to children and nonspousal caregivers aged 65 and under 231 ICS sample; analysis limited to 4 self-identified ethnic groups (German, Irish, English, and African Americans) 615 ICS sample; analysis limited to labor force participants 741 ICS sample; analysis limited to current or former labor force participants 326 ICS sample; analysis limited to current or former labor force participants aged U.S. Studies Using the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) (n = 4) Ettner NSFH Cross-sectional 6,451 Nationally representative sample of survey; secondary adults aged 19 and over living in data analysis private residences in the U.S.; analysis limited to those with a living parent; caregivers included those who lived with someone who was disabled or chronically ill, or who provided care to someone outside of their home who was seriously ill or disabled OA a

11 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 651 McLanahan and Monson 1990 Wakabayashi and Donato 2005 Wolf and Soldo NSFH Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 1987 and 1992 NSFH Longitudinal survey b ; secondary data analysis NSFH Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 10,785 NSFH sample; analysis limited to those aged 64 and under 2,638 NSFH sample; analysis limited to women aged who were labor force participants, and who had at least 1 living nonresidential parent, step-parent, or parent-in-law in both survey years 1,717 NSFH sample; analysis limited to married women with at least 1 living parent, step-parent, or parent-in-law aged 65 and over OA (Continued)

12 652 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte TABLE 1 Continued Sample Limited to Labor Caring Caring Force for for Author Data Source Study Design N Sample Population Women Caregivers Participants Elderly Family 3. U.S. Studies Using Other Data (n = 13) Barnes, Given, and Given 1995 Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003 Chang and White- Means 1995 Covinsky et al Original interviews and self-administered questionnaires Springfield Elder Project National Long Term Care Channeling Evaluation Caregivers of patients enrolled in the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) Cross-sectional survey Cross-sectional survey Randomized trial; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 118 Convenience sample of 118 adult daughters/daughters-in-law acting as primary caregivers to 1 dependent community-dwelling elderly parent or parent-in-law 119 1,975 noninstitutionalized elderly living in Springfield, Massachusetts; analysis limited to adults of any age acting as caregivers to functionally disabled elderly African Americans living in private households 1,926 Adults of all ages acting as primary caregivers to the frail elderly at risk of hospitalization at 10 sites across the U.S. 4,592 Caregivers to frail elderly at risk of institutionalization; 11 of 12 cities across the U.S.; sample limited to labor force participants or those who left their jobs to provide care 60+

13 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 653 Dentinger and Clarkberg Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study (CRWB) Ettner 1995 Pooled data from 1986, 1987, and 1988 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Franklin, Ames, and King 1994 Postacute home care patients in Michigan Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Longitudinal survey 763 Employees aged of 6 large randomly selected employers in upstate New York; caregivers helped relatives or friends who were elderly or disabled; additional caregiving elements considered by this study included checking up by telephone and making care arrangements 11,486 Analysis limited to women aged 35 64; among caregiving subsample, analysis limited to those providing personal assistance to parents for a health condition lasting 3+ months family members of patients discharged from Michigan acute care hospitals; analysis limited to female employed family members acting as primary caregivers to individuals with at least 1 ADL or 2 IADL limitations and living at home 55+ (Continued)

14 654 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte TABLE 1 Continued Sample Limited to Labor Caring Caring Force for for Author Data Source Study Design N Sample Population Women Caregivers Participants Elderly Family Moen, Robison, and Fields 1994 Muurinen 1986 Pavalko and Artis and 1986 Women s Roles Survey National Hospice Study (NHS) 1984 and 1987 National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women Longitudinal survey Quasiexperimental; secondary data analysis Longitudinal survey; secondary data analysis 293 Random sample of wives and mothers from a mid-sized community in upstate New York, interviewed in 1956 and again in 1986; caregivers provided assistance to the ill, disabled, and elderly 1,445 Adults of all ages acting as primary caregivers to terminally ill cancer patients enrolled in the NHS at multiple sites across the U.S. 3,083 Nationally representative sample of women in the U.S.; analysis limited to those aged in 1987; caregivers provided assistance to an ill or disabled family member

15 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 655 Pohl et al Pohl, Collins, and Given 1998 White- Means 1993 Combined 2 data sets from the midwest U.S. Postacute home care patients in Michigan National Long Term Care Channeling Evaluation Cross-sectional survey Longitudinal survey Randomized trial; secondary data analysis 159 Family caregivers to elderly individuals with at least 1 ADL limitation (n = 536) and to older adults with Alzheimer s disease (n = 229); analysis limited to adult caregiving daughters and daughters-in-law family members of patients discharged from Michigan acute-care hospitals; analysis limited to adult caregiving daughters and daughters-in-law to individuals with at least 1 ADL or 2 IADL limitations and living at home 454 Adults of all ages acting as primary caregivers to the frail elderly at risk of institutionalization at 10 sites across the U.S.; analysis limited to 454 African Americans (Continued)

16 656 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte TABLE 1 Continued Sample Limited to Labor Caring Caring Force for for Author Data Source Study Design N Sample Population Women Caregivers Participants Elderly Family 4. UK Studies (n = 6) Arber and Ginn 1995 Carmichael and Charles 1998 Carmichael and Charles 2003a Carmichael and Charles 2003b Carmichael et al and 1990 General Household Survey (GHS) Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 1985 GHS Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 1990 GHS Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis 1990 GHS Cross-sectional 1992 and 1999 British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) survey; secondary data analysis Longitudinal survey; secondary data analysis 11,879 Nationally representative sample of adults aged 16 and older living in private households; analysis limited to those aged 20 60; caregivers were regularly caring for someone in a private residence who was sick, handicapped, or elderly 7,269 GHS sample; limited to women aged ,463 GHS sample; limited to women aged ,098 GHS sample; limited to women aged and men aged ,836 Nationally representative survey of 10,000 adults living in private households in the UK; analysis limited to working-aged adults; caregivers provided regular service to someone who was sick, disabled, or elderly

17 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 657 Henz Family and Working Lives Survey 5. Canadian and European Studies (n = 2) Keating et al Spiess and Schneider General Social Survey 1994 and 1996 waves of the European Community Household Panel Cross-sectional survey; secondary data analysis Cross-sectional survey Longitudinal survey; secondary data analysis 1,259 Nationally representative 2-stage sample of adults aged living in private households in the UK; analysis limited to individuals who cared for someone for at least 3 months who was sick, disabled, or elderly 1,366 Nationally representative sample of 12,000 individuals aged 15 and over living in private households in Canada; labor supply subanalysis limited to adults aged providing unpaid care to seniors with a long-term health condition lasting at least 6 months 6,390 Sample of 127,000 adults aged 16 and over living in private residences in 12 European countries; bivariate analysis limited to women aged 45 59; regression analysis further limited to labor force participants; caregivers provided regular assistance to adults who needed special help as a result of old age, illness, or disability Notes: a OA = caregiving to older adults who may not be over 65 years of age; 60+ or 55+ denotes caregiving to adults aged 60+ or 55+. b Longitudinal surveys are considered to be cross-sectional in the study design column if only one wave of data was considered or if multiple years of data were pooled.

18 658 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte hospice, or conventional care). The results showed that caregivers who selected the home hospice option were significantly less likely to be engaged in the labor market at the onset of caregiving (42.8 percent) compared with those who opted for institutional hospices (48.3 percent) or conventional care (51 percent) settings. As described in the theoretical framework, Muurinen s finding that home-based caregivers were less likely to be employed a priori leads to the question of whether they self-selected into the unpaid caregiving role because they already were outside, or had looser attachment to, the labor force when faced with the initial caregiving decision. Such a possibility suggests that the lower LFP of caregivers versus noncaregivers stems not from caregiving activities but from other unidentified factors systematically influencing caregivers employment decisions. The possibility that such individuals were less likely to have been employed before becoming caregivers presents a statistical dilemma when testing in crosssectional data: the endogeneity bias. Endogenous variables are those that are jointly determined and where the distinction between dependent and independent variables may be uncertain (Gujarati 2003). In the case of LFP and caregiving, an individual s LFP may be partially determined by her or his caregiving status, and at the same time, the decision to care may be partially determined by the person s preexisting participation in the labor force. At the heart of the endogeneity problem is whether individuals who undertake caregiving duties differ in some systematic way from noncaregivers with respect to labor supply. In short, could some factors unrelated to caregiving explain their divergent labor market behavior? As several authors (Bolin, Lindgren, and Lundborg 2007b; Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Ettner 1995; Heitmueller 2007; Johnson and Lo Sasso 2000) noted, the failure to test and account for endogeneity can lead to biased and inaccurate results. Because this methodological problem is often overlooked, we will highlight throughout this article the extent to which authors addressed endogeneity. We now are ready to review the twenty-three studies that presented caregiver LFP rates: fifteen were from the United States (including Muurinen s), six were from the United Kingdom, and one article each was from Canada and elsewhere in Europe. In eight U.S. studies limited to working-age caregivers, LFP rates for females ranged from 34 percent 6 among preretirement-age women (Pavalko and Artis 1997) to 68 percent among the daughters and daughters-in-law of elderly care recipients (Pohl, Collins, and Given 1998). 7 Most studies, however, presented

19 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers % a: LFP rates among U.S. studies of caregivers before and after controlling for retirement age, men and women combined 100% b: LFP rates among U.S. studies of preretirement-aged caregivers after controlling for gender 80% 80% 60% 60% 40% 40% 20% Caregivers all ages (n = 15) Preretirement-aged caregivers (n = 8) 20% Women (n = 8) Men (n = 3) Note: The lower line represents the first quartile (25%), and the upper line represents the third quartile (75%) of scores. The whiskers extending from each box indicate the minimum and maximum scores from each subset of studies. figure 1. The Interquartile Range for Each Subset of Studies rates clustered around 50 percent (Barnes, Given, and Given 1995; Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Pohl et al. 1994; Stone and Short 1990; Wolf and Soldo 1994). As expected, the three U.S. studies that included LFP rates for working-age caregiving men reported higher rates, between 57 percent and 77 percent (Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Ettner 1996; Stone and Short 1990). The wide variation of LFP rates for U.S. caregivers may be partly attributable to age differences between the study samples. On the whole, rates were inversely related to the mean age of caregivers (Barnes, Given, and Given 1995; Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003; Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Ettner 1996; Pavalko and Artis 1997; Pohl, Collins, and Given 1998; Pohl et al. 1994). Similarly, the seven remaining U.S. studies that did not exclude retirement-age caregivers found much lower rates, from 25 percent to 34 percent (Boaz 1996; Boaz and Muller 1992; Chang and White-Means 1995; Muurinen 1986; White- Means 1993; White-Means and Chollet 1996), with one upper-limit outlier of 52 percent (Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003). Figure 1 underscores the importance of controlling for age and gender in LFP analysis. Figure 1a shows box plots of the LFP rates of fifteen studies of unpaid caregivers in the United States, before and after excluding studies (n = 7) that did not control for reaching retirement age. Figure 1b is further refined, presenting the LFP rates of caregiving women

20 660 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte (n = 8 studies) versus men (n = 3 studies) under sixty-five years of age. It is evident that both age and gender are central factors influencing caregivers LFP in the United States, and if they are not controlled for in statistical analysis, these variables are likely to confound results. Study results from the United Kingdom (n = 6) diverged dramatically from those of the United States. LFP rates from UK-based studies were higher across all groups, independent of caregiving status, and the LFP rates for caregiving women were consistently clustered around 64 percent (Arber and Ginn 1995; Carmichael and Charles 2003a, 2003b; Carmichael et al. 2005; Henz 2004). Only one study presented a lower rate, 51 percent (Carmichael and Charles 1998), and it also reported a higher LFP rate for caregivers than for noncaregivers. Rates were also higher for caregiving men in the United Kingdom (n = 4), ranging from 70 percent to 82 percent (Arber and Ginn 1995; Carmichael and Charles 2003b; Carmichael et al. 2005; Henz 2004). A single multinational study of women in twelve European countries found that only 6 percent of preretirement-age (45 to 59) caregivers were in the labor force, compared with 50 percent of all women in this age cohort (Spiess and Schneider 2003). In contrast, the one Canadian study reported that 62 percent of female caregivers and 78 percent of male caregivers were employed in 1996, 8 and the authors found no evidence that caregiver LFP rates were lower than those for the general population (Keating et al. 1999). The degree to which the differences noted in these twenty-three studies can be attributed to actual variation in caregivers LFP is unknown. Heterogeneity between studies inclusion criteria related to age, marital status, care recipient relationship, coresidence, and even the definition of a caregiver all may have contributed to the variation. In addition, macroeconomic factors such as regional and national unemployment rates during the survey years may have been important. In order to provide further context, we performed chi-square analyses of LFP rates for caregivers versus noncaregivers. For four studies that did not provide rates for noncaregivers (Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Henz 2004; Keating et al. 1999; Stone and Short 1990), 9 we imputed sex-specific rates from national census and labor market data, matched for the year and original caregiver sample size (Office for National Statistics 2006; Statistics Canada 2001; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2005). Eleven studies remained after eliminating all articles that (1) included individuals aged sixty-five and older (n = 7), (2) did not state a sample

21 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 661 size (Wolf and Soldo 1994), (3) provided neither an LFP rate for noncaregivers nor a data collection year in order to impute a rate (Barnes, Given, and Given 1995; Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003; Pohl, Collins, and Given 1998; Pohl et al. 1994), or (4) would have resulted in multiple representations of participants from the same study. Following the Cochrane Collaboration s recommendation (Higgins and Green 2006) to ensure that study participants be counted in a meta-analysis only once, we removed one study (Carmichael and Charles 2003a), as it presented the same subset of data as a broader study by the same authors (Carmichael and Charles 2003b). For a second study (Pavalko and Artis 1997), we included both substudies of a single population and reweighted the frequencies to ensure that the participants received a final weight equivalent to one. While recognizing the debate in the literature surrounding the exclusion and reweighting of such studies (Stanley 2001), the direction and statistical significance of our results remained unchanged when we analyzed the data both with and without these modifications. We weighted the studies by sample size to avoid giving undue influence to very small studies, 10 and Table 2 summarizes the results. When we considered all eleven studies together, we found that caregivers were significantly less likely to participate in the labor force compared with noncaregivers (p < 0.001). The mean weighted female caregiver LFP rate was 52 percent, compared with 58 percent for noncaregivers, and the male rate was 75 percent, versus 85 percent for noncaregivers. However, countries overall labor market trends differ systematically, and our results also suggest systematic differences between the United States and United Kingdom. In the United States, both male and female caregivers overall had significantly lower LFP rates compared with noncaregivers (p < 0.001). However, when we considered the studies separately, three demonstrated no significant difference between the LFP rates of female caregivers versus those of noncaregivers (Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998; Ettner 1996; Pavalko and Artis 1997). 11 In the United Kingdom, only male caregivers were significantly less likely to be employed compared with male noncaregivers (p < 0.001). Among UK women there was no statistical difference between the weighted LFP rates for caregivers versus those for noncaregivers. Furthermore, when we considered the studies separately, half revealed that caregiving men were not significantly less likely to be employed compared

22 662 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte TABLE 2 Labor Force Participation Rates for Working-Aged Caregivers versus Noncaregivers Women Men Author Country Caregivers Noncaregivers Caregivers Noncaregivers N % LFP N % LFP N % LFP N % LFP Doty, Jackson, and Crown 1998 USA a ns a Ettner 1996 USA , ns , Pavalko and Artis 1997 USA 185 b , Pavalko and Artis 1997 USA 278 c , ns Stone and Short 1990 USA a a Arber and Ginn 1995 UK 1, , , ns Carmichael and Charles 1998 UK , Carmichael and Charles 2003b UK 1, , , Carmichael et al UK 1, , , , Henz 2004 UK a a ns Keating et al Canada a ns a Spiess and Schneider 2003 Europe 1, , Weighted total 9, , , , Weighted subtotal USA 1, , , Weighted subtotal UK 5, , ns 2, , Notes: a Sex-specific rates for noncaregivers imputed from national census/labor market data, matched for the year and caregiver s sample size. b Subsample of coresident caregivers. c Subsample of extraresident caregivers. p < p < p < ns = not significant.

23 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 663 with noncaregivers (Arber and Ginn 1995; Henz 2004), and two studies demonstrated that caregiving women were significantly more likely to be employed than noncaregivers (Carmichael and Charles 1998) or the general population (Henz 2004). Although the overall chi-square results suggest that caregiving may have a large and negative effect on labor force participation, other factors influencing LFP have not been considered. Thus a simple bivariate analysis may be methodologically inadequate. In addition to age and gender, a number of other variables are likely to influence LFP as well. Indeed, based on the ten studies (five U.S. and five UK) that controlled for a variety of such factors in multivariate analysis, few conclusions can be drawn. Only one reported that caregiving had an overall negative effect on women s LFP (Pavalko and Artis 1997); two reported that caregiving had no significant effect on LFP (McLanahan and Monson 1990; Wolf and Soldo 1994); and five found that subpopulations of caregivers were negatively impacted (Arber and Ginn 1995; Carmichael and Charles 2003a, 2003b; Carmichael et al. 2005; Ettner 1995). Finally, two articles reported that some groups of caregivers were significantly more likely to be in the labor force compared with noncaregivers (Carmichael and Charles 1998; Dentinger and Clarkberg 2002). Next we briefly describe these findings. First, Pavalko and Artis (1997) were the only authors to conclude that caregiving generally had a negative effect on women s LFP and was likely to accelerate the early retirement of U.S. women aged forty-seven to sixty-four. In contrast, two other U.S. studies (McLanahan and Monson 1990; Wolf and Soldo 1994) that used 1987 NSFH data and controlled for possible confounders did not find that caregivers on the whole were less likely to be employed than noncaregivers (note that Wolf and Soldo s study was limited to women). Five articles (one U.S. and four UK) reported that subpopulations of caregivers experienced declining LFP. Three studies reported that coresidence with the care recipient was associated with lower caregiver LFP (Arber and Ginn 1995; Carmichael and Charles 2003b; Ettner 1995). 12 Similarly, three articles found that the provision of more than ten hours of care per week resulted in lower LFP, regardless of living arrangements (Carmichael and Charles 2003a, 2003b; Ettner 1995), although Arber and Ginn (1995) found the labor force exit threshold to be ten hours for men but twenty hours for women. Interestingly, Carmichael and Charles (2003a, 2003b) found that women providing fewer than ten hours of

24 664 M.B. Lilly, A. Laporte, and P.C. Coyte care per week were significantly more likely to be employed than noncaregivers. Since 60 percent of the caregivers in their sample provided fewer than ten hours of care per week, the net effect on LFP would have been positive. Longitudinal analyses by Carmichael and colleagues (2005) found that only new female caregivers in the United Kingdom were less likely to be employed than noncaregivers. However, women who had already been caregiving for some time were no less likely to be employed than noncaregivers, unless they were providing more than twenty hours of care each week. The opposite effect was revealed for men: those who had been giving care for some time were less likely to be working than noncaregivers, although new caregivers were not less likely to be employed than noncaregivers. Finally, two studies found that caregiving had a positive effect on LFP. In exploring retirement timing among caregivers in the United States, Dentinger and Clarkberg (2002) found that caregiving men were significantly less likely to retire than noncaregiving men (caregiving was not a significant predictor of women s retirement timing unless they were caring for spouses or for more than one person, in which case caregiving women were much more likely to retire than noncaregivers). 13 Similarly, Carmichael and Charles (1998) found that caregiving women in the United Kingdom were 10 percent more likely to be in the labor force than noncaregivers. We began our analysis of caregiver LFP by analyzing the rates from twenty-three studies. Together with the chi-square analysis, the results seem to suggest that caregivers have a much lower LFP compared with that of the general population, with the possible exception of women in the United Kingdom. However, a number of these studies did not control for factors that may have influenced the caregivers LFP, particularly age. Of the ten studies that controlled for such variables, only one concluded that caregivers generally had lower LFP rates than noncaregivers. Thus, on the whole, caregivers do not seem less likely to be employed than noncaregivers. Instead, those who coreside with care recipients or who report heavy caregiving commitments appear to be much less likely to be in the labor force. It would seem then that policy supports related to caregiver labor force participation should not target caregivers in general but perhaps instead should be targeted at this intensive caregiving subset. We discuss this later. In no way are we suggesting that there is no relationship between caregiving and employment. Instead, the absolute (binary) measure of

25 Labor Market Work and Home Care s Unpaid Caregivers 665 LFP may be too crude: labor force participants include everyone from occasional workers providing only a few hours to the labor market each week to those providing more than seventy hours. Caregivers may be making more subtle changes in their working lives that cannot be captured by the LFP measure, such as keeping their jobs but reducing their hours. Thus, further analysis is necessary to reveal the true labor market costs borne by this group. Sociodemographic and Health Factors Influencing Caregivers LFP and Labor Market Hours. The preceding analysis demonstrates that age and gender are central factors influencing caregivers LFP, and we now examine what other characteristics may affect their employment and work adjustments. Work adjustments include such changes as taking unpaid leave, reducing hours or changing work schedules, or leaving the labor force because of caregiving (White-Means 1997; White-Means and Thornton 1990). In total, eighteen studies (fifteen U.S., two UK, and one Canadian) examined such variables. Together, they suggest that caregivers with the following characteristics were more likely to be out of the labor force, to work fewer hours in the labor market, or to adjust their work schedules to accommodate their caregiving responsibilities: Women (Arber and Ginn 1995; Boaz 1996; Boaz and Muller 1992; Chang and White-Means 1995; Covinsky et al. 2001; Henz 2004; Mutschler 1993; Stone and Short 1990; White-Means 1992; White-Means and Thornton 1990). Those in poor health (Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003; Chang and White-Means 1995; Stone and Short 1990; White- Means 1992; White-Means and Chollet 1996; White-Means and Thornton 1990). Older caregivers and those nearing retirement age (Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003; Covinsky et al. 2001; Dentinger and Clarkberg 2002; Henz 2004; Pohl et al. 1994; Spiess and Schneider 2003; Stone and Short 1990; White-Means and Chollet 1996), although one study found that older caregivers who were still in the labor force were less likely to make accommodations (White-Means 1997). Those more involved in caregiving duties (Barnes, Given, and Given 1995; Dentinger and Clarkberg 2002; Pohl et al. 1994), primary caregivers (Stone and Short 1990), and those without caregiver substitutes (Bullock, Crawford, and Tennstedt 2003; Chang and